MOVING TO PORTUGAL - BEST THING WE EVER DID - RAISING OUR FAMILY IN CENTRAL PORTUGAL

Hi there! I am Joseph.
I have been an immigrant / expat living in central Portugal along with my beautiful girlfriend Mariana for six years now.

Together Mariana, my father Clinton and myself, would like to show you a bit of the daily goings on around our Portuguese farm / homestead / smallholding and all of the work we are doing whilst renovating, starting building projects, working with our livestock, DIY and trying to grow our little families own food!

In this episode we welcome you to join us in mid summer time as we go about our daily goings on around our farm and the local surroundings, here in central Portugal.

We begin this week on our local farmers market in Fundao, my favourite town, with my grandparents who are visiting us for the first time in three years.

The market was hot and therefore did not have many livestock or plant stalls, but lots of terracotta, food and textile stalls. My family all looked around the market square, the largest farmers market in our region, whilst I dipped out, into the shade and had a ice cold drink whilst I waited for them. After that we went for a meal and met up with a few friends.

Once we headed back to our farm Chloe, Mariana and I walked up to the sheep barns, said hello to the woolly women quickly and then up to the poultry pasture, where we needed to address a small problem with one of our mother ducks. She is a fantastic brooder and sits on her eggs perfectly every year, a chicken however had been sneaking into her nest and laying eggs in there, so we had to remove the chicks before all the ducklings hatch out as the mother duck, not being able to differentiate between the chicks and ducklings would possibly take the chicks to swim in our stream. Chicks cannot swim and this would mean they would drown, so unfortunately they have to be separated and placed inside the brooder box.

The little chick seems right at home inside mine and Marianas lounge, Mariana spent a couple of minutes making sure the chick knew where his food was and how to eat, this is not really a necessary step, but when a chick is on their own it can help to make sure they eat properly, lone chicks sometimes lack the enthusiasm towards food that they would normally gain from their peers.

Straight after setting up the chicks new little home we decided it was time for a BBQ, I walked up to the village and purchased some bifanas, pork belly slices and sirloin hamburgers from my friend, the local butcher. I bought some bread rolls from the bakery and got some vegetables from the veggie patch, then lit the BBQ up and we had a lovely family afternoon by the swimming pool.

At the end of the day I stood underneath our grape vines on the pergola, explained why I was absent last week and thanked you all for watching.

I hope you enjoyed the episode and I hope you all have an amazing week ahead.

Thank you, see you in the next one!

See our journey to self sufficiency / permaculture / organic farming living in Portugal, trying to produce as much of our own food planting vegetables, growing fruit trees as well as looking after all our animals, such as our chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks, quail, rabbits and sheep - Shortly pigs too!

- Growing vegetables, raising meat and foraging on our cherry farm in Portugal’s Beira baixa, Fundão

Follow us on Instagram @farmerforfun

IF YOU ARE PORTUGUESE OR TRYING TO LEARN PORTUGUESE PERHAPS CONSIDER TURNING ON SUBTITLES FOR THIS VIDEO, MARIANA & I HAVE CREATED SUBTITLES IN PORTUGUESE, MAYBE THEY MIGHT COME IN HANDY WITH LEARNING A WORD OR TWO! CLICK THE 'CLOSED CAPTIONS' BUTTON ON THE VIDEO AND THE SUBTITLE OPTIONS WILL APPEAR.

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